


That's what friends are for

by Miya_Eulik



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Redemption?, Who knows...it can be a start
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-08 01:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21467458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miya_Eulik/pseuds/Miya_Eulik
Summary: Just a few hours ago Cassandra attacked the capital of Corona. Just a few hours ago they had to fight. Just a few hours ago they had to drag a beloved friend down to the dungeons. Varian could understand her feelings right now, her anger, her hate. He has been there, after all. So it was natural for him to go down to the dungeons and talk to her, to help her, to bring her back or at least to try to do so. Because that was what friends are for and he wanted to be her friend again.
Relationships: Cassandra & Varian (Disney: Tangled)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 75





	That's what friends are for

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there,
> 
> It's a really huge step to me, to post something in English for the first time. As you probably can tell, I am not a native speaker, I am from Ukraine and live in Germany right now and I write mostly in German. I wanted to try to translate some of my works in English. I think my English is not that bad, I read a lot in English, basically, I read more in English than in German and in Russian combined, so yeah...I tried to find a beta reader but it somehow didn't work out. So, please give me a chance, I am trying...
> 
> This is basically something I would like to see in the actual show in Cassandras revenge or after that, for Varian being the one to try to get thought to her because he is the one who can actually understand her or help her...I just like them interacting and no, I am not shipping a fifteen-year-old child with an adult, no, forget it...not gonna happen...
> 
> So, I hope, you can enjoy it.

The atmosphere in the room was oppressive, burying the people almost like a heavy stone avalanche. The adrenaline of the battle whirled in the air, all of them were ready to jump up and do something but were too tired to actually move. Rapunzel was sitting at the table, the lose golden locks hanging deep in her face and the otherwise happy princess looked almost shattered, like a broken doll. Eugene was sitting next to her, pulling soft, reassuring circles over her back while she sobbed in her hands. Lance was standing aloof from them, looking just as out of place as Varian felt. The royal couple was hovering at the window a little bit helplessly, looking outside, their memory not quite intact again, but even they could understand that something terrible had happened.

Just a few hours ago Cassandra attacked the capital of Corona. Just a few hours ago they had to fight. Just a few hours ago they had to drag a beloved friend down to the dungeons. From the windows they still could see the destruction caused by the black rocks, the people aimlessly wandering the streets too shocked to do something productive with themselves. The half-destroyed automaton Varian built for the battle and nearly died in, hung like a black cloud over the city, impaled by one of the rocks, and it reminded the boy too much of the battle of Old Corona. When he was the one attacking his friends when Rapunzel stopped his machines just like Cassandra did today. But back then his opponents didn’t try to kill him like today and his heart was still pounding wildly in his chest fearfully at the near-death encounter he just had. His shoulder still hurt from the impact, and his right arm was in a noose but compared to some of the guards he had it good. At least no one died.

“I should talk to her”, Rapunzel raised her head, her voice soft in the silence, almost suffocated in her grief.

“Blondie, you don’t have to”, Eugene pulled her to his chest, and she sobbed miserably.

“No, I have to help her, I…”, she brocks off.

“She will not listen to you”, Varian spoke softly and all their eyes flew to him, “she is very angry right now, so angry she could not think straight”, he took a deep breath, it was still hard for him to talk about his fall, even now, when he was forgiven, the people around him not giving him cold looks anymore, “I know exactly, what she is feeling right now, I was there”

“But I have to help her”, the princess sobbed again, “she is my best friend, she is one of the most important people in my life. I can’t just give up on her”

“You will just make it worse, princess, I would not have listened to you either, if you had come to me just a few hours after the battle”, the boy shook his head. Rapunzel flinched like he has punched her, and it hurt him almost physically to see her like that, “I will go and talk to her”

“Are you sure, kid?”, Eugene asked uncertainly, “she will not listen to you either”

“No, she will not”, Varian shook his head again, “but I know how she is feeling right now, and I know how to make it better”

“Is it really OK for you?”, Rapunzel asked tentatively and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye with her knuckle, "she will not be nice to you"

“It’s the least I can do for her”.

Varian hated the dungeons, the musty air, the gloomy light, all of this reminding him of the terrible year he himself spent down here. The days and weeks and months dragging themselves tortuously slow but above all else his thoughts, his terrible, evil thoughts keeping him awake at night. Rapunzel and Eugene were with him on the trip to the dungeons. The torch in Eugene’s hand flickered in an invisible breeze and crackled as the fire ate on the wood. They stopped at the entrance to the dungeons.

“Are you sure, you want to do this?”, Rapunzel asked quietly. The tears on her cheeks have dried out but her eyes glittered suspiciously.

“Yes, I am”, Varian nodded and took the torch from Eugene.

“If something happens, scream, OK, I will be down there in a blink”, the man said worriedly and put a reassuring hand on his good shoulder. Varian nodded curtly, took a deep breath and climbed the staircase down to the dungeons. The musky air hit him mercilessly in the face as he hurried down the steep stairs and brought up memories he would rather keep buried deep down in his very soul and for a moment he was irrationally afraid he would get stuck down here again, this time for good. But he was doing it for a friend, a friend who was just as confused and angry as he had been back then. A friend he nearly killed in his rage and had yet to voice an apologize to. The guards followed him with wary gazes. They didn’t like him, he knew that even after the red rocks when all the other citizens of Corona forgave him, the soldiers still looked at him with suspicion, but they tolerated him because their princess told them so. He could not blame them.

Varian was able to hear Cassandra even when he was not at her cell yet. Her angry screams echoed dully from the walls. The moonstone was neutralized, when they defeated her, her blue hair was black again, her armor of black rocks vanished but the anger remained, still hot, still hurtful.

“Hello, Cassandra”, the boy said softly, stepping to the bars. She fell silent. Her eyes rested burning on him, she being nothing more than a dark figure in the shadows of the cell. When she didn’t answer, he put the torch in a holder on the wall and pulled up a stool the guards sometimes sat on.

“Out off all of them they are sending you?”, she almost spat when he settled on the stool, “what is this? A positive example? Just because you failed does not mean that I will!”

“No one sends me here, I came on my own”, Varian shrugged and regretted it immediately as hot pain jerked through his right shoulder.

“What do you want to say? That I am wrong? That I should embrace your so-called friendship again? After everything she did to me?”, Cassandra snorted.

“I know how you are feeling right now”, the boy said softly, understanding for he could really understand it.

“You don’t know anything about me!”, she screamed and stepped very close to the bars. If she happened to extend her hand, she would be able to reach him and he would lie if he said he was not afraid of her, because he was, quite terribly so. But she needed this conversation, she needed it more than anything else right now and he was willing to give her just that. It wasn’t about his worries or his scares right now, it was all about her.

“Quite a lot”, he replied, proud when no fear crept into his voice, “I was there”

“This was different!”, she retorted.

“Why?”, Varian cocked his head, “do you know this cell was mine once?”, and it was, he knew every corner, every stone in it and it was really strange to be standing outside of the rusty bars right now, “I spent a year here, just as hurt and angry as you are right now”, he went silent giving her time for a response that never came. Cassandra's eyes narrowed suspiciously, looking for a snag in his honest words, “I know you are very angry right now, so angry you could not think straight anymore. You think you have to do all of this, because of all the wrongs being done to you, that your actions can somehow be justified by all of this, that all of this was justice and of course you are right to some extent. What happened to you was terrible, I can not even try to imagine what it is like to be abandoned by your own mother. But is your anger really directed at the right person right now?”

“You don’t know what she did to me!”, she screamed, pressing her face to the bars and Varian had the strong feeling of looking in a mirror right now, in a mirror to his past.

“It’s easier to blame others for your misery”, Varian nodded, “but what exactly have Rapunzel done to you?”

“She stole my life, she took my destiny away from me!”

“Did she? She told me everything, what happened. Was Rapunzel really the one who took your mother away from you or was it Gothel herself who left you?”, after these words, Cassandra's hand flipped forward as he had feared and grabbed him by the collar, yanking him off the stool to his trembling feet and he opened his mouth to scream, but then he saw it. A hint of a feeling in her icy eyes, a tender, uncertain thing: doubt and fear hidden deep behind all that rage. So, he didn’t scream for this was not about him, it was about her, only about her, “Rapunzel was just a baby, it wasn’t her fault Gothel kidnapped her, she herself suffered because of this”.

Cassandra didn’t respond. The hand around his collar trembled just like her lips, like her entire body and the doubt grew in her eyes. Varian reached with his good hand for the grip on his collar, laid his fingers on top of hers, not to loosen her grip, no, to build contact between them she so desperately needed right now. Contact he had needed back then but never received.

“I know you are very angry right now, but believe me, that anger will vanish and then you will realize what exactly you have done”, he spoke softly. Cassandra’s grip loosened, his collar slipped from her fingers and she went down to her knees pressing her forehead to the bars tiredly.

“How did it go for you?”, she asked weakly, barely audible.

“With time”, Varian dropped back onto the stool, “and with logic. It was illogical to blame you guys for everything, it just wasn’t your fault. Yes, maybe it would have gone better if some things had gone a little bit differently, but even if it did, it would never have been able to solve the problem. I was thinking a lot down here. The first weeks were the worst ones. I was so angry I screamed at everyone who happened to be near my cell, just like a child”

“You are a child”, Cassandra replied sounding a little like the old Cassandra he knew. Like the woman he had a crush on, the one he helped with her chores at the science expo, the one he called Cassi, the one he nearly killed in cold blood.

“That’s not an excuse”, he shrugged again, this time more careful with his bad shoulder, “then it dammed up over time, like a flame that slowly emanates the fuel. Then I wished they would just hang me”

“Corona would never hang a child”, Cassandra shook her head.

“Then I was desperate enough to help the Suporians with their plan because I wasn’t able to see another way to ever escape the dungeons”, he continued, “I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but I still did”

“How did you manage to stop being angry?”, she asked almost pleadingly.

“I realised that anger brings me nothing. Anger does not make you stronger, Cassandra, it makes you weaker, it gnaws you from the inside up so you can not stop hurting others”, he slid down from the stool to be at eye level with her, “I was weak when I allowed my anger to do just that, but you are so much stronger than I can ever be”

“That doesn’t matter, not anymore”, Cassandra spoke weakly, a last attempt to convince herself of something that was not true, “I crossed the line, there is no way back”

“You know that that’s not true”, Varian shook his head, “there is always a way back”

“I attacked the kingdom, I tried to kill Raps!”, she sobbed but her eyes stayed dry.

“So have I”, the boy replied, “but I am still sitting here. Rapunzel forgave me, so why do you think she will not forgive you?”

“That was different, you had a reason, you wanted to save your father but I…I tried to kill her because I was angry and I still am. God, why am I so angry with her!?”, she shook her head, angry and desperate at the same time.

“No, it’s not different and she will forgive you just as she forgave me”, Varian put his hand over her fingers over the bars, “are you ready to talk to her?”, she thought long, very long and Varian let her, because she really needed it. Then she nodded softly, “OK, I will tell her”, with these words, he squeezed her hand one last time and stood up.

“Thank you, Varian”, she breathed as he was about to leave.

“That's what friends are for”, he spoke without turning around, “and I am really sorry, Cassi, for trying to kill you and for all the awful things that happened to you”, then he left.

His footsteps echoed strangely from the walls as he climbed the steep stairs up. Rapunzel and Eugene were still standing at the top of the stairs, a strange, unusual silence between the two of them.

“And?”, Rapunzel asked with a desperate hope in her voice.

“You can go talk to her, princess”, the boy nodded, and she threw herself around his neck with tears.

“Thank you”, she breathes squeezing him one last time and scurrying down the stairs.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it. All form of criticism is highly appreciated and thankfully received and don't hesitate to call me out on every mistake I have made, I'm still learning and if I know about my mistakes, I can avoid them next time.


End file.
